Google’s robot group struggles to fill leadership vacuum as it shoots for ambitious launch before 2020

Nearly two years ago, Google announced a new robotics
division that had secretly snapped up almost ten
companies.

The state of those efforts is now in flux, and the group is
in a difficult position as it tries to meet a goal of
creating consumer robot technology by 2020.

Called "Replicant" internally, the initiative is a collection
of roughly ten acquired companies that insiders admit have
little in common, with teams scattered across different countries
and working on unrelated projects.

Replicant is an independent part of Alphabet, the new
holding company that contains Google and all its
newer businesses, but it hasn't had a permanent leader
since founder Andy Rubin left in 2014, and it's grappling with
questions about how to achieve Rubin's ambitious vision of
creating the first wave of "consumer products that interact with
the physical world."

Rubin told Business Insider that "the strategy was defined" when
he left, but it seems like the group has lost much of its
unification since then.

"The technology pieces we have are incredible," says one member
of Google's robots team. "We just have to commit to a particular
direction to go in and focus."

Alphabet has been in discussions with potential CEO
candidates and is evaluating its options, the person said, but
finding a person with the right combination of robotics
expertise, business savvy, and bold vision is no easy
feat.

As Google parent company Alphabet seeks to build a collection of
game-changing businesses in everything from hardware to
healthcare, the robotics division is a reminder of the challenges
facing the organization's new bet on its moonshot projects.

Business Insider spoke to severalcurrent and
former Googlers, as well as robotics-industry insiders, to
provide a window into one of Alphabet's most ambitious and risky
bets.

Google declined to comment on this piece.

How Replicant got started

Replicant's existence within Google and its current predicament
are both tied to its founder, Andy Rubin.

Rubin joined Google in 2005, when Google bought his smartphone
company, Android. For the next 10 years, he slowly built Android
into an enormous business that had sold more than 1 billion
handsets to people all over the world.

Known for being extremely demanding, as well as a technical
genius with a sharp business acumen, Rubin stopped leading
Android in March 2013, and he and CEO Larry Page decided on a new
mission: Rubin would create Google's new robotics division.

Page is interested in robots — we once heard a story about how at
one of his extravagant birthday parties, Page enlisted a robotic
arm that chucked party favors to guests — and had a
broad vision of creating general-purpose bots that could
cook,
take care of the elderly, or build other machines, but the
actual specifics of Replicant's efforts were all entrusted
to Rubin.

If the assortment sounds disjointed, that's because, in some
ways, it was.

One employee tells Business Insider that the acquisition strategy
relied on the fact that building a robot requires excellent
software systems combined with state-of-the-art hardware. So
Google started snapping up companies that had top entrepreneurial
talent and unique accomplishments in each one of those areas.

Google has been tight-lipped about what exactly it hoped to
achieve with the robots, and there have been reports that the
company was looking at everything from factory automation to
robot assistants.

According to an email Rubin sent the team, which was viewed by
Business Insider, the overarching goal was to create and release
consumer-oriented robotic technology before 2020.

"We have built a world-class organization that
is well on its way to launching its first products based on
robotic technologies," Rubin wrote when he left in 2014.

Before 2020, he wrote, "this team will take more than 20 years of robotic research and
launch a suite of 1.0 products that will be the foundation for
future consumer products that interact with the physical
world."

When the guru leaves ...

A
still from a short film created by Replicant-company,
Autofuss.Autofuss

Replicant cofounder James Kuffner had been managing the research
and development side of things, but was thrust
in charge of the entire division when Rubin left. Although
Kuffner is a long-time expert in cloud-based and humanoid
robotics, he didn't have the product-development experience that
his former boss had.

After Rubin left, many of the people who had joined Google
through the robotics M&A felt confused and disappointed,
according to several sources. "The division was harmed," one
person said.

Marc Raibert, CEO of Boston Dynamics, by far the most
high-profile company Google bought, felt especially taken aback,
we're told. (Raibert declined to comment on this piece.) Like
many others, Raibert believed in Rubin's leadership and vision.

Rubin defends his decision to leave, telling Business Insider via
email that "I left after the team was assembled
and the strategy was defined."

While he insists his departure wasn't a shock to those who
knew him well, he concedes that the nine companies he
acquired were "probably the most surprised."

A Boston Dynamics bot.Boston Dynamics

"I personally pitched each and every one of them on the strategy
and convinced them to join this crazy idea," he says. "So they
saw me as their sponsor, and perhaps seeing your sponsor move on
was difficult — I don't know."

Sources say that after Rubin left, there was no one who knew how
to tie all the disparate acquisitions together. Rubin had
provided a destination, but the team no longer had a road map or
a guide to get there.

Rubin takes issue with the point, noting that he felt confident
in the three people who had "volunteered to take on
everything" when he left.

"I am known to be somewhat impatient and I had a nervous energy,"
he says. "The last thing you want me doing is hovering over a
bunch of brilliant roboticists and asking them 'Are you done
yet?'"

Kuffner remained in the business leadership role until earlier
this year, when Johnathan Rosenberg replaced him.

But Rosenberg, a long-time Google vet who helped lead Motorola
and wrote a book about management with Eric Schmidt, is another
placeholder while the company searches for someone who is a
better fit.

Even though the company has been in discussions with
candidates and evaluating options, Rubin simply isn’t an easy
leader to replace.

One former high-ranking Google executive says the robot
group is a "mess that hasn't been cleaned up yet." The robot
group is acollection of individual companies "who
didn't know or care about each other, who were all in research in
different areas," the person says. "I would never want that
job."

Incredibly hard problems

The Schaft
robot.SCHAFT,
Inc.

Alphabet's collection of robotic companies — which a current
employee describes as the "crown jewels of the industry" — still
have the opportunity to work on interesting problems and
challenges.

Replicant is trying a lot of different things in
parallel and learning along the way, with the capabilities of
each of the robotics groups advancing.

But still, some Replicant employees feel frustrated that the
teams are moving forward in relative isolation. Although many of
the robotics employees are based in the Bay Area, Google also has
factions in Massachusetts, where Boston Dynamics is based, and
Toyko, because of Schaft.

Several of these teams have lost
employees in the last year, according to a LinkedIn search, and
some employees crave more collaboration.

A person who worked at one of the
robotics companies that Google acquired told Business Insider
that Amazon was also eyeing the business before the search giant
officially sealed the deal.That person would ultimately end up wishing
that Google hadn't won the bidding war.

"Google seems more aimed at a
moonshot while Amazon is building a ladder to the moon," the
person said, frustrated by the idea that if Amazon had acquired
the company, the technology would likely already be loose in one
of the ecommerce giant’s fulfillment centers, instead of plodding
along in R&D.

Not a "robot army," by any means

Another Boston Dynamics bot.Screenshot

Those who work in the robots group believe it is tackling one of
the world's most difficult technological problems.

If computers are the most complex things that have been created
by humans, a robot is that much more complex. You need to connect
very advanced software and artificial intelligence with an
incredibly precise mechanical device with motors, sensors, and
the ability to recognize the world around it.

During the heyday of coverage of Google's robotics acquisition,
publications casually suggested that Google was building a "robot
army." And, when you watch the videos of Boston Dynamic's crazy
robots in action, it’s easy to feel vaguely terrified by the idea
of Google building a herd of robot dogs.

The fact that Boston Dynamics is a military contractor didn't
help allay those fears. Google has since said it will honor
existing Boston Dynamics contracts with the Department of
Defense, but will not pursue new military business.

But the broader thrust of the group is not about building a
Terminator. There have been a lot of interesting
experiments around the idea of robots helping humans, whether
through manufacturing, in the home, or with logistics. Google
will eventually share some of the results of experiments, even if
it isn't close to releasing a product, according to the
robot-group insider.

Factions of Replicant also work with universities, like MIT or
Carnegie Mellon, where Kuffner is an adjunct professor. For
example, the Meka Robotics team that Google acquired has
collaborated with Stanford University to find new ways to
explore the Red Sea, by
providing hardware to develop underwater robot arms.

"We’re optimistic about the technology, and that it’s going to
help people," the robot-group insider said.

The ripple effect

For now, the biggest legacy of Google's effort may be the impact
on the close-knit robotics industry.

Some say that Google's acquisition spree breathed life into the
community. One insider says that Google's investment helped
stimulate the industry in the same way that Google's
self-driving-car project has catalyzed similar efforts at other
companies.

For a while, the private sector didn't want to touch robotics
because it was seen as too expensive without any short-term uses.
Most progress came from either the government, through DARPA, or
in university settings. Existing robots worked in factories or
fulfillment centers. But Google's investment and its acquisition
spree accelerated more private and consumer-focused technological
development (and piqued the interest of niche robotics companies
looking for a viable exit strategy).

"It felt like a frenzy," David Cann, CEO of telepresence company
DoubleRobotics, tells Business Insider. "That was a very
exciting time for robotics. It really validated the space."

But Google's embrace of robots has come at a cost.

A former Boston Dynamics employee tells Business
Insider they have heard from people inside Google
who feel frustrated by how their once open culture is now
shrouded in secrecy.

When the Schaft robot that Google bought in 2013
had to drop out of DARPA's robotics challenge last year,
it gave some the impression that the company was impeding
overall robotics progress. The goal of the competition was to
accelerate the development of robots to help during disaster
situations.

Perhaps even more important are the expectations now resting
on Alphabet's high-profile robot effort.

If Alphabet doesn't figure out how to make money in
this space and the robot company winds down, it will send a
bad message to the market, the former Boston Dynamics employee
said.